The 107th Edition
Sometimes, the best way to achieve what you desperately want is to loosen your grip on it.
Something to Think About
Wanting something badly can help you focus, but want it too badly and it can make you tense, rigid and unable to respond to what the moment requires.
Something to Ask Yourself
What might become possible if you stopped trying to force the outcome and trusted yourself to meet the moment as it unfolded?
Personal Lesson
This weekend, I ran the Eiger Trail E101 by UTMB. It’s a 101 kilometre trail race through the Bernese mountains of Switzerland, with around 6700m of climbing and descending. My preferred kind of race, really, because running is boring, but surviving in the mountains is more interesting. 😉
The race went incredibly well. I executed it almost exactly as I wanted to. Everything I could control, I pretty much did control. I fuelled thoroughly, paced myself patiently, moved efficiently through the aid stations and ran according to my current fitness and strength. Crucially, I didn’t allow my desire to perform well to crowd out my enjoyment of the day. I relaxed, ran my own race and remained calm, smiley and unserious when it mattered.
In the days leading up to the race, I’d spent a lot of time meditating on how I wanted to approach it. I knew I couldn’t arrive stiff, rigid, worried or led by my ego. And I didn’t want to; that approach ruins this hobby for me. I wanted to return to how I approached ultras when I was new to it all and took myself less seriously.
I needed to hold my hands up and surrender to the day. The mountains would choose what happened, and it was not up to me to argue with them.
The night before the race, I was reading Ryan Holiday’s Stillness Is the Key and came across a phrase that became my mantra:
“Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”
It summed up everything I needed. Be patient. Be thorough. Stay relaxed. Do not rush what requires care. That lighter approach helped me execute the race I am most proud of.
Running – Life’s Metaphor
Running teaches us that commitment and control are not the same thing.
You can prepare meticulously, care enormously and give everything you have without being entitled to a particular result. The terrain, weather, body and day will always have their say.
Life works much the same way.
We’re responsible for our effort and our attitude, but we can’t demand that reality follows our plan.
Surrender is not giving up, it’s so far from that.
It’s making peace with what’s out of your control so you can properly handle what you can control.
Final Thoughts
When we really want something, our natural instinct is to grip it more tightly.
We think that greater tension proves greater commitment. We worry that relaxing means we don’t care enough.
But pressure can narrow our attention, waste our energy and make us less capable of responding intelligently.
Letting go doesn’t mean becoming passive. Let me tell you, I certainly didn’t surrender my responsibility to fuel, pace myself or keep moving. I surrendered the belief that I could control the entire day.
That distinction allowed me to remain disciplined without becoming rigid and ambitious without being consumed by the outcome.
There is a strange paradox here.
The more desperately we chase a result, the more likely we are to interfere with the actions required to achieve it.
We rush and force things. Overthink and make bad decisions.
We make emotional decisions.
Sometimes, the most effective thing we can do is slow down enough to move smoothly.
Want the thing.
Prepare for it.
Work hard enough to give yourself a chance.
But when the moment arrives, loosen your grip. Hold your hands up and meet the day as it is.
Trust the work you’ve done, take care of what is in front of you and allow the result to emerge from there.
It’s fun to be the player and the spectator at the same time.
Slow is smooth.
Smooth is fast.
RUN THE RUNNABLE 😉